


A Hundred Thousand Flaws

by Cypreus



Series: The Changing Seasons [6]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:08:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22978147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cypreus/pseuds/Cypreus
Summary: Claude loses.He can't decide if that's a good thing.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Claude von Riegan, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Claude von Riegan, Edelgard von Hresvelg & Claude von Riegan, Edelgard von Hresvelg/Claude von Riegan, My Unit | Byleth & Claude von Riegan
Series: The Changing Seasons [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1454074
Comments: 3
Kudos: 57





	A Hundred Thousand Flaws

“How long will you keep stumbling?”

Byleth looks toward the two arguing on the road to the monastery. Golden sunlight reflects on Dimitri’s hair as he shakes his head at Claude, a soft smile on the prince’s face and amusement in blue eyes that are far too easy to read. Beside him, the young future duke grins, cocky and self assured. Edelgard’s pale eyes stare ahead silently, head high and steps sure.

“I have to make the right decisions so I can win.” To Claude, the answer was always easy.

Moss green eyes close in calm demeanor, head tilted back to let in the sunlight shimmering through the trees. The young man wears a lack of creases on his face. Not a frown, not even a raised eyebrow. His face is shut tight, impenetrable though his easy smile is disarming.

“Sometimes the right decision doesn’t lead to winning.” 

The von Riegan heir scoffs. “Try winning something first and then talk to me again.” 

Claude seeks to offend, but his words only cause the prince to smile. “I’ll accept that challenge.”

His demeanor is as welcoming as Dimitri’s. His true feelings, as closed off as Edelgard’s. The young dukedom heir pushes them both for a reaction. Edelgard rolls her eyes as Dimitri flushes red. 

Every smile, every wink. Every movement is calculated, every fidget, preplanned. He had them all tied around his little finger. With every action he did they gave an equal reaction. And in time, Byleth will either learn to distrust the boy or start reacting to everything he does.

And now Byleth finds a warm palm holding theirs. Claude is there, smiling, winking, pulling Byleth to the dance floor. A push, a shove, a reaction. Claude looks for a reaction from their professor, but Byleth refuses to budge. Intrigue mars the night. Intrigue. And not honesty in blue irises nor guarded hope in lilac eyes could fathom the reasons Claude had pushed them together. 

But heavily guarded walls are crumbling and the strongest of armour - once a protection, tonight a burden - is replaced by ball gowns and suits and hearts on sleeves. As the music dances and twirls into the night, so do burdens and politics and alliances.

Claude is as sharp as ever. Or perhaps he merely fancied the looks on their flustered faces. And as sea blue eyes meets the clever shine on moss coloured irises, Byleth knows that none of this is real. Claude is ruled by nothing and no one. Not music, not propriety and definitely not trust. Claude, open though his face might be, will always be hiding.

All alone in his world of hurts. And not a friend in sight.

Even now he hides among the shadowed trees of the forest. A man on the outside looking in. The blur of red and blue in the middle of a snowfield of corpses, oblivious to the carnage around them. 

“You sure about this?” Hilda stands tall, her air of laziness not visible at this very moment. Not at a time like this. 

“I-” he chokes on his words. 

_Steady, you can’t trip up now_.

“Of course.” He answers breezily despite choking on his own surety. 

“You don't look sure.”

“Trust in your leader will you?”

Ignatz is in position somewhere in the forest, ready to take aim at whoever Claude decides will die last. Edelgard is weakening in the harsh winter conditions. Unprepared for this cold, he sees her falter in her steps, her swings weak and off mark. Her opponent still has power in him left. 

Dimitri keeps looking into the forest, shoulders hunched, turning his head ever so slightly whenever he has the chance. Like a feral beast that knows it’s being hunted. Claude would have preferred that the prince remain oblivious to his own coming death. Oh well. Claude readies his relic, aims at the prince’s back. And swallows the nervous lump in his throat.

_“You just never question my motives do you?”_

_“Does it matter? I trust you.”_ Claude’s traitorous mind reminds him of better days. Reminds him of the earnest look in the young prince’s eyes and a smile full of hope and yearning aimed his way. _”Or at the very least, I believe in my friend."_

_You never should have Dimitri._

_“How can you be so sure that everyone you meet has good intentions?”_

_“I’m never sure Claude.”_ The prince looked down as he shook his head, golden strands falling over watery blue eyes. _"I_ hope _they have good intentions. And for me, that's enough.”_

Claud’s heart aches for the prince from his memory. So young and naive. _Did you ever hope the same for me?_

Dimitri scoffed then and turned a wry grin toward him. Claude remembers that look well, the prince challenging him. Challenging his lies. Challenging his truths. _“You’re so sure of everyone's intentions. But you never seem sure of your own.”_

Claude laughed and pretended it wasn’t true. 

_I’m sure. This time, I won’t stumble._ He feels the rush of an arrow loosed from his bow. Dimitri falls onto Edelgard’s sword and into her arms. Eyes wide and in shock. She’d been prepared to lose.

_“Hey don’t forget about me.”_

_“My apologies Claude, I didn't mean to-”_

_“It’s alright princess, I get it. You’re worried about your boyfriend. He does look pretty fragile.”_

_“He’s not my boyfriend, idiot.”_ The glare Edelgard gave him for that comment would have been deadly if not for the lovely dusting of pink on her cheeks. The tips of her ears had been a wonderful red contrasting with her white hair. 

Like the red of her robes on the snow. Or the blood of the Emperor and Prince blooming like roses around them. Edelgard has slumped over, they’re dying in each other’s arms, Ignatz’ arrow already having pierced her armour. Her mask crumbles away to reveal pain. And perhaps sorrow.

 _“You can tell me your true feelings, I wont tattle.”_ He kept pushing as he always does. He’d been so sure he would figure her out someday.

_“I’m never telling you anything.”_

_“C’mon, don’t you trust me?”_

_“No. Dimitri trusts you enough for the entirety of Fodlan. A mistake on his part, I’m sure.”_ Despite the harsh words, the princess was smiling against her will. He considered it a win. To see her walls come down around them. Around him. 

Days spent trying to draw reactions from the other two, to see the cracks in their armour. The weakness in their walls. To pry them open. To make the right decisions. To _win_. Days spent trying to draw a blush on their faces. Days spent pushing and prodding just to catch every smile, every laugh, every tear.

When?

When did it all become so precious to him? 

He remembers. He had been overjoyed to see her cry, because that meant she trusted him enough to be vulnerable. She trusted him enough to be able to shield her from curious eyes hiding malicious thoughts. He had been ecstatic when the prince came to him, shaken and unsure. All the world’s pains spilling from between frost bitten lips. Their hearts went out to each other. 

Everyone’s intentions had suddenly become pure. Innocent. It was easy to forget that he trusted no one and considered it all a win. His heart breaks for the two people he’d learned to trust. The two people he’d learned to love. The two people who had trusted him. _Loved_ him.

Dimi. Dima. Eddie. El.

Claude. Just Claude. No one ever wanted to call him anything else. How could they? He never let them in. He never was close enough to anyone to call him-

 _Idiot_.

Said so affectionately. A smile on her face and a glimmer in her pale eyes. 

_My friend._

Not a word but a title. A pedestal and place in the heart of a prince. So much more than just words.

_“How long will you keep stumbling?”_

He feels the sting of tears from within his aching skull. 

_Don’t trip up now. Not now. Not when it’s already too late._

“I had to. I had to make the right decisions, so I can- We talked about this.”

He imagines Dimitri releasing a laugh, barely even a breath. “ _Yes. We did. I guess I was wrong.”_

Claude was so sure. So sure that he would walk this path and never regret. Never limp in his indecision. Never stumble on his emotions. 

_So you’ve won. Was it the right decision?_

Byleth steps over the threshold. The crunch of wet snow under their boots. The white stained in reds and pinks, the silence feels frozen in time. Claude stands solemn over the red and blue figures on the fallen snow. Skins translucent and blue, armour frosting from the fallen snow. 

The leader of the Alliance, a bright sunny spot in this bleak battle ground. He wears the flag of unity.

Byleth doesn’t know what to do. It seems to Byleth, that Claude was always too fast, to be grasped. Too sly to be understood. Claude had always escaped them.

“It’s over teach.”

Claude laughs. As bright and as cheerful as the day they’d met. The same sunny grin. The same easy confidence. The same dead eyes that refused to tell the truth. Except perhaps a little truth dares escape his unreadable face this day in the form of reddening eyes and salted tears welling in them. His demeanor shakes, and for the first time, his impenetrable walls crumble as the tears fall down his cheeks. Eyebrows pinched, smile strained. Dread inside green irises. 

All alone in his world of hurts. As he’s always meant to be.

“I win.”

Claude loses the only people he’s ever loved.

**Author's Note:**

> So I actually wrote this at the same time I was writing the other two. This one already made me cry the most while I was drafting all three fics but after the game, I just couldn’t stop the tears lol.  
> Anyway, I decided to get back to it ‘cause I thought I wouldn’t cry anymore.  
> NOPE. STILL CRYING.
> 
> The dancing scene is something I added recently and I feel like that part is better than the rest coz I think I might have improved since I wrote this last year.
> 
> Title is from King Lear when he talks about his heart breaking.


End file.
